1. Field of the Invention
The field of the invention is storage and packaging units for photographic prints and in particular storage and packaging units that permit displaying of one or more stored prints.
2. Background Art
In the amateur photographic market, the processing of photographic film is typically performed by a commercial photographic laboratory. Such laboratories receive exposed film from their customers, which they develop to produce negatives. The negatives are then printed onto photographic paper to yield positive images "prints," and the prints and the negatives are returned to the customer. The negatives must be stored by the customer for use if additional prints are desired in the future.
The number of prints returned to the customer may vary depending on the number of "exposures" contained in the film roll. For the popular 35 mm. film size, 12, 24, or 36 exposure film rolls are commonly available. Often, badly underexposed or overexposed frames will not be printed by the processor to eliminate the waste of photographic paper, hence decreasing the number of prints returned to the customer to a number less than the number of initial exposures on the film roll.
The prints and negatives are most commonly retained to the customer in a paper envelope, which often includes a separate pocket for storing the negatives, to protect them from being scratched. Such paper envelopes are inexpensive, but provide relatively little protection to the prints when used for storage. Further, such envelopes provide no means of displaying the prints.
Some processing laboratories may offer their customers the option of having their prints bound in a miniature photographic album. The prints are thereby protected and may be stacked on a shelf like a book. Further, the binding system may be relatively inexpensive and hence offered as a promotion to encourage customers to use that particular processing laboratory. There are several drawbacks, however, to the use of an album in lieu of an ordinary envelope. From the point of view of the processing laboratory, the insertion of the prints into the album may add significant additional labor to the processing. Also the prints in the albums are not easily displayed, but must be removed for framing. Finally, the albums ordinarily do not have a provision for storing the negatives, and hence require the customer to store the negatives separately and create a means for cross-indexing the stored negatives to the prints.
Alternatively, the customer may purchase a film storage box. Typically the expense of such a storage box precludes its use as a substitute for the traditional envelope containing the prints and negatives and hence its use as a promotional item by the processing laboratory. Rather, such storage boxes must be sold separately to the customer through retail channels. Further, although some such storage boxes are clear and allow the topmost print to be seen through the box, they provide relatively little flexibility in displaying the prints, the clear plastic being used simply to aid in identifying the stored prints.